Inge Borkh

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Inge Borkh (born 1921) is a Swiss soprano.

Born Ingeborg Simon in Mannheim, Germany, she was one of the leading dramatic sopranos of the 1950s and 1960s, though she rarely recorded. Her most famous roles were Lady Macbeth in Verdi's Macbeth and the title roles in Richard Strauss's Salome and Elektra. She can be heard on CD performing Scenes from Elektra and Salome, conducted by Fritz Reiner in the 1950s (RCA 09026 68636-2) as well as a famous 1960 version of Elektra with the Dresden Staatskapelle Opera Chorus and Orchestra conducted by Karl Böhm (Deutsche Grammophon 445 329-2). Was married to Yugoslavian bass Alexander Welitsch (1906-1991)

She was born Ingeborg Simon but is known to opera lovers as Inge Borkh - one of the great voices of the '50s and '60s. Well known for her Straussian specialties, she loved Italian opera just as much and was an enthusiast for 20th-century works.

She was an actress before she became a singer. She also had some training in dance. Needless to say, her training in both performing arts served her well in opera: she became known both for her voice and for her dramatic intensity - the "singing actress" exemplified, years before the term became common usage.

She studied singing in Milan and made her debut in 1940 at the opera in Lucerne as Czipra in Johann Strauss' Der Ziguenerbaron. She remained in Switzerland until 1951, when in Basle she sang a sensational Magda in the first German-language performance of Gian Carlo Menotti's The Consul. It was her key to international stardom, leading to engagements in the world's great opera houses: Vienna, Munich, Berlin, London, New York, and San Francisco where she sang almost all the roles that she could do.

And she triumphed in her portrayals of the most challenging dramatic roles: Verdi's Aida and Lady Macbeth, Puccini's Tosca and Turandot, Beethoven's Fidelio, Cherubini's Medea, Wagner's Elsa, Sieglinde and Senta, Strauss' Ägyptische Helena, Empress and Dyer's Wife, Weber's Euryanthe, Orff's Antigone.... But it was as Strauss' Salome and Elektra that she clinched her claim to fame. None of her performances were captured on film but fortunately some of her great performances were recorded, and both complete works as well as excerpts from a wide array of performances are now available on CD. The complete works include Antigone, Turandot, Iphigenie, and her famed Elektra and Salome.

Inge Borkh retired from opera in 1973 after seven performances of Elektra in Italy, and briefly went back to the theater as an actress of the spoken word. She also for a moment turned chanteuse, doing a unique cabaret act, a souvenir recording of which, Inge Borkh singt ihre Memoiren, is available on Preiser CD. Today, she is a fit and happy octogenarian, and as the photos here show, still very much in possession of the great looks that in her prime have always matched her great voice. See